


Shadowboxing

by sirenalley



Category: Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic
Genre: Breathplay, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-18
Updated: 2013-04-18
Packaged: 2017-12-08 20:04:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/765449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sirenalley/pseuds/sirenalley
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It gets harder each time, pulling back. Sometimes he doesn’t think he can.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shadowboxing

He doesn’t get the differences between them. He’s searched every crevice of Cassim’s world, hunted every hidden corner. In his dreams, he’s steeped himself inside of Cassim, gotten a good look—that’s the way he imagines it, like he’s reaching his arms into his chest and digging around. The hardest part is pulling back. His arms will be slick and black up to the elbows. He can’t touch anything, because it gets everywhere, this essence of Cassim, smudging his clothes and his hair and his face in wet streaks of darkness. 

It gets harder each time, pulling back. Sometimes he doesn’t think he can. 

He doesn’t _get_ Cassim. He doesn’t know how to be around him, like he turns tongue-tied and stupid for no reason. Childish anxieties—teasing, jeering, vestiges of their past that have bloomed into reminders.

Alibaba’s throat burns and he coughs up the last dredges of smoke. He’s not even sure why he bothers, except to understand the taste as a fundamental extension of Cassim. If he can like it as much as Cassim likes it, maybe he’ll understand them both.

But it just hurts, and once they’re out of sight of the rest of the Troupe, Alibaba drinks water to soothe the rawness.

“Why do you keep trying? You’re not getting any better.” Cassim is calm, but his eyes are like shards of glass, calculative and reflective. Alibaba can’t see anything in them. “Heh. You waste all of it and look like an idiot in front of everyone.”

“Shut up,” he wheezes. “Who said I don’t like it?! And I’m getting better! I did it twice this time!”

“You’re right. You’ll be a pro at it pretty soon, Alibaba.” 

“Yeah…” It sounds so weak. “Just—wait.” 

Those glass-eyes are laughing at him, but the expression is terrifying on this person—hollowed and dark and empty. Cassim leads the way into his room. He always does that, like he owns this space and everything inside. Alibaba has to follow. 

Cassim is unpredictable in ways he can’t grasp, and it doesn’t get any easier to do this, and he doesn’t feel any less nervous.

The distance between their bodies shrinks to immediate proximity. Cassim breathes hot across his cheek, saturated with alcohol and sweet smoke, scents that cling to the sheets and pillows. Those eyes raze his skin like he’s already naked, down and up and down again, but Alibaba can’t look back. His chin tucks in against his chest. “H-Hey…”

Cassim’s weight pushes on top of him, easily overpowering as his stomach jumps. His shoulders flatten against the bedroll until there’s nowhere to go.

“You’re already hard for me, right?” Cassim’s open palm skims down his belly, rubbing the faint definition of muscle and plucking at the sash of his robe. “I can tell. You always start squirming around like you’re asking for it, like you want me to put my hands all over you.”

“ _S-stop_ —” Alibaba’s voice creaks out of his throat as he traps Cassim’s wrist with his fingers and yanks. His anxiety builds into a peak of burning embarrassment as he turns his head, shielding part of his face. “Do you have to _say_ those things—?”

“Why not? It’s true,” Cassim says, prying him off and slotting a knee between his thighs, up, grinding it into the crux enough to make him flinch and—he’s squirming. “You _want_ me to fuck you. You’re begging for it. You think I don’t notice? Even around the rest of them, I can see it.” He laughs, low and gritty, massaging the shape of Alibaba’s cock through the fabric. “It’s too fucking obvious. You give these really pathetic glances when you don’t think anyone’s looking at you. You get so nervous.”

“ _Cassim_ —” Pleads don’t matter when the next moment Cassim finds the pale, pampered skin under his clothes and digs his nails in like he’s trying to scour and ruin every inch. It starts the same way and it ends the same way. Alibaba’s turned over, robe peeled off and his hands forced over his head, legs spread. Cassim winds his fist around the rope at his throat and he yanks until it starts to pinch and chafe. 

He can’t breathe. It starts and ends the same way, Cassim’s weight bearing down upon him, holding him still and open. Slick, oily fingers find his hole, rubbing in too soon, stretching him into a dull ache that splinters up the base of his spine. Cassim keeps squeezing the rope wound around his closed fist, even when there’s no more room to tug and his knuckles bulge with the force of his clutch. He can’t _breathe_. It’s too intense. He pushes his face against the sheets and gags, black spots bursting into the boundary of his vision, a euphoric blade of fear cutting through him.

There’s a thrill once Cassim pushes inside of him, once he’s muttering filthy things like prayers… _you’re so tight, fuck, you’re trembling all over, I bet your face is so red, you get so red, I want to see it, I want to make you come…_

But sometimes he wonders if Cassim could kill him. If he squeezed too long, Alibaba couldn’t stop him before the lights blew out in his eyes and he succumbed, and maybe Cassim would just keep squeezing.

When it’s over, he doesn’t move for a while. Cassim flips him over like a limbless doll and kisses him, licks into his mouth, sealing air from his lungs beyond what he can stand. It’s exactly what he’s wanted this whole time—just to be kissed and held with some shadow of kindness, and this is always his favorite part. It makes it _significant_ in some way, as if he’s getting through to Cassim, cracking his fists against the black barrier around his heart.

Then it’s really over. Cassim leaves his bed, a cold vacancy where he was. And it’s not any different. He doesn’t possess the courage to say anything.

Alibaba stares into the dark and tucks his fingers under the rope at his throat, rubbing the burn. It bruises in the same spot, over and over, pressed until the purpled skin sours into yellow, then back to black.


End file.
